Likely clauses will include a demand that all advanced countries take a fixed proportion of their population annually as migrants from undeveloped countries, and provide them with the same social services available to citizens.

… when not nobly tilling small plots of earth, furiously digging holes and then filling them in again, patiently presiding over a factory production line, monitoring the production of tariff laden widgets, or leaning on a post by the side of the road clad in hi-viz while holding a stop/go sign.

The use of IQ as a political weapon is bullshit. We are talking here about a product of the social ‘sciences’ – nuff said.

The Stanford Binet test was designed as a predictor of how well students might do at university (back when going to university was only available to a small percentage of people). As such, it was a very good predictor.

Wrong, as usual. IQ was a ‘product’ of the psychological sciences, one of the two disciplines most responsible for developing statistical methods (the other being agriculture). Psychology was also one of the disciplines most responsible for developing controlled replicated experiments: e.g. Pavlov.

It is a branch of behavioural biology and not a soft science.

IQ tests were initially designed to identify “retardation” in children (Wikipedia):

French psychologist Alfred Binet, together with Victor Henri and Théodore Simon had more success in 1905, when they published the Binet-Simon test, which focused on verbal abilities. It was intended to identify mental retardation in school children,

Other versions were used by the military:

During World War I, a way was needed to evaluate and assign Army recruits to appropriate tasks.

It was never designed to identify how well students would do at university, although later studies demonstrated that it was a good predictor of how well students would do at school. Having said that, in the late 60’s, another modified IQ test was used in NSW to identify students for special “gifted” classes (OC) in primary school. I thought this was dropped but Google says NSW still runs these.

Further, IQ is regarded as one of the most reliable and stable psychological measures available, as it correlates well with success in traditional education. From the Wikipedia piece:

Psychometricians generally regard IQ tests as having high statistical reliability.[9][55] A high reliability implies that – although test-takers may have varying scores when taking the same test on differing occasions, and although they may have varying scores when taking different IQ tests at the same age – the scores generally agree with one another and across time. Like all statistical quantities, any particular estimate of IQ has an associated standard error that measures uncertainty about the estimate. For modern tests, the standard error of measurement is about three points[citation needed]. Clinical psychologists generally regard IQ scores as having sufficient statistical validity for many clinical purposes.[22][56][57] In a survey of 661 randomly sampled psychologists and educational researchers, published in 1988, Mark Snyderman and Stanley Rothman reported a general consensus supporting the validity of IQ testing. “On the whole, scholars with any expertise in the area of intelligence and intelligence testing (defined very broadly) share a common view of the most important components of intelligence, and are convinced that it can be measured with some degree of accuracy.” Almost all respondents picked out abstract reasoning, ability to solve problems and ability to acquire knowledge as the most important elements.[58]

If you read the Wikipedia article, you will see that johanna has just about everything wrong.

According to the Oz – paywall protected – there was nothing irregular about the rate at which VADM Griggs’s RAN squeeze was promoted.

The now Mrs Griggs was promoted to LCDR on 1 January 2012, ‘substantively’ promoted to ‘temporary’ CMDR – whatever that means – on 18 September 2015 and then substantively promoted to – presumably ‘permanent’ – CMDR on 1 July 2016.

Defence says there is nothing irregular about this because four years as a LCDR is a normal requirement for further promotion. It does not, however, say whether immediate promotion after of four years is a typical career pattern or what the actual average time is for promotion from LCDR to CMDR. We are still left with the impression that maybe Mrs Griggs was pushed upstairs rather speedily. Do any ex-pusser Cats have views on this?

In the meantime, the ABC is gushingly reporting Defence’s clearance of any impropriety by Griggs:

noting that he “…. has been at the forefront of efforts to reduce the incidence of domestic violence within Defence, which saw him driving the accreditation of Navy as a White Ribbon workplace when he was the Chief of Navy,”

The GEM study — funded by activist group GetUp — found estimated eligible generation would hit 41,381 GWh by 2020, not only exceeding the current RET, but the original RET as well.

“The Coalition’s argument that we can’t go any further than the target they’ve proposed without imposing some kind of huge economic shock and threat to reliability is obviously not true because we’re pretty much already there,” Green Energy Markets director Tristan Edis said.

This Israel Folau imbroglio is becoming quite interesting. It seems to be the first time there has been a concerted pushback by a significant number of normal people sick of being hectored by hysterical collectivist cockheads for holding entirely normal views.

Yes the newspaper comments are running strongly in Izzy’s favour and Alan Joyce’s hypocrisy is raised time and time again. Good! The Oz, home of the sodomy obsessed swiggly Rick and sodomy fetishists JA, Chris Kenny et al must be distressed. Excellent.

There will be no short blacks, as coffee is about to go through the PC grinder.

Coffee chain Starbucks is to close more than 8,000 company-owned branches in the US for an afternoon next month to carry out “racial bias” training.
The aim is to prevent discrimination in Starbucks stores.

ABC radio news-
“Japan was taken aback by Trump’s rapid acceptance of the invitation for tripartite talks with North Korea, and is scrambling to assemble an agenda.
F me D. Do the luvvies really expect us to believe that Japan is as naive as they are?

If collusion is the twin of conspiracy, then there are lots of colluders running around Washington.

Robert Mueller was tasked to find evidence of Trump and Russia collusion that might have warped the 2016 campaign and thrown the election to Trump. After a year, his investigation has found no concrete evidence of collusion. So it has often turned to other purported Trump misadventures. Ironically, collusion of all sorts — illegal, barely legal, and simply unethical — has been the sea that Washington fish always swim in.

Christopher Steele, hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign through a series of firewall intermediaries, probably paid Russian sources for gossip and smears. If there is a crime of collusion, then Clinton-campaign contractors should be under investigation for seeking Russian help to find dirt on Trump, to spread smears around throughout the DOJ, FBI, and CIA, and to make sure that the dirt was leaked to the press in the final weeks of the campaign — for the sole “insurance” purposes of losing Trump the election.

Some sort of collusion likely occurred when the Obama DOJ and FBI sought FISA-court requests to surveille Carter Page and, indirectly, possibly many other members of the Trump campaign. On repeated occasions, they all made sure the FISA-court judges were not apprised that the Steele dossier, the chief basis for these requests, was paid for by the Clinton campaign, that the dossier was not verified by the FBI, that the dossier was the source of media stories that in circular fashion were used to convince the FISA judges to grant the surveillance requests, and that the FBI had severed relations with Steele on the basis of his unreliability. Such a collusion of silence was similar to James Comey’s admission that he apprised President Trump of every iota of lurid sexual gossip about him — except that his source was a dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton and written by a campaign operative hired to find dirt on Trump and who had been working with Comey’s FBI to get FISA approval to spy on Trump’s own aides.

Apparently, a number of government officials must have been in cahoots to get all their stories and agendas straight ahead of time. They certainly agreed on talking points to keep embarrassing facts from FISA judges, and they did so on a number of occasions. Does that behavior fall under the definition of some sort of colluding obstruction?

Who set up the ruse in which an FBI director types up confidential notes of a meeting with the president and passes them to a friend to ensure a firewall conduit to the press, to publish as a “leak” from an “unidentified source” to damage the reputation of the president? All that would require a degree of collusion to leak a classified FBI document that is so sensitive that House Intelligence Committee members with security clearances cannot see what the media and a personal friend of Comey’s already have.

James Comey himself was quite a colluder. Somehow, he managed to mislead Congress by assuring them that he had not written his assessment of Hillary Clinton before he interviewed her and supposedly had not been the source of or approved leaks to the media. He has contradicted what both Loretta Lynch and Andrew McCabe have said. He has deliberately misled a FISA court by withholding information from it, vital to any evaluation of the veracity of his writ. He probably lied when he was messaging the media that Trump was under investigation while simultaneously assuring Trump in person that he was not. He has admitted that he warped an FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server because he assumed she’d win the presidency — an admission of politicized interference into a criminal investigation, if not a blatant confession that the FBI in felonious fashion was manipulating investigatory evidence to affect the outcome of a U.S. election. For Comey to escape legal exposure from all that required some sort of colluding help in high places.

Former attorney general Loretta Lynch seems to have been involved in all sorts of collusion. Given that there are more than 5,000 airports in the United States, two jets — one carrying the attorney general, the other the ex-president and spouse of a presidential candidate of the same shared party currently under investigation by Attorney General Lynch — do not just accidentally bump into each other on the tarmac of the Phoenix airport. There was no more chance of that than of investing $1,000 in cattle futures and reaping a $100,000 profit ten months later. And after elevating the FBI director from investigator to prosecutor with the final say on whether to prosecute Hillary Clinton, why was the supposedly quasi-recused Lynch then quibbling over the vocabulary of Comey’s report on Clinton?

The officer who had a relationship with the Vice-Chief of Defence, Ray Griggs, received a “temporary” promotion to a commander’s role in a shorter time than it would normally take to be appointed to the rank permanently.

Navy public affairs officer Chloe Griggs was appointed to the ‘’temporary’’ rank of commander in three years and nearly nine months — three months quicker than it normally takes to reach the rank on a permanent basis, Defence has revealed.

Defence detailed the promotions in ­answers to Senate questions ­released on Friday — just four days before Malcolm Turnbull ­revealed that Vice-Admiral Griggs was retiring.

Vice-Admiral Griggs, who was considered a contender for the chief’s job, became the subject of secret reviews after he left his wife, Kerrie, in 2014 to start a ­relation­ship with navy public ­affairs officer Chloe Wootten, whom he later married.

When announcing Defence leadership changes on Monday, the Prime Minister indicated the personal situation did not have any bearing on Vice-Admiral Griggs missing out on the chief of defence role.

The role, which has not been held by a naval officer since 2002, went to Chief of Army Lieutenant General Angus Campbell.

Since February, Defence has refused to respond to questions about exactly when Chloe Griggs’s promotions occurred.

Last month, Nick Xenophon Team senator Rex Patrick queried the timing of the relationship and the promotions.

On Friday in a ­response to the questions, the ADF said while it did not normally ­release details of promotions below star rank, it would release the information, having been given the “express permission” of the individual concerned. The response said Commander Griggs received sub­stantive promotion to lieutenant in January 2004, substantive promotion to lieutenant commander on January 1, 2012, and then substantive promotion to temporary commander on September 18, 2015, and then substantive promotion to commander on July 1, 2016.

Asked what the average time to rise from lieutenant commander to commander was, Defence said four years’ seniority as lieutenant commander was normally required for substantive promotion to commander.

Defence also said it was “important to note that from time to time, earlier or temporary promotions may be granted if there is a capability requirement”.

“The average time for any rank ­varies significantly between branches based on position availability, branch size, promotion targets and navy capability requirements,’’ the response said.

A Defence spokesman said the timing of the release of the ­answers was unrelated to the announcement about the change of ADF leadership.

This is not true:

Asked what the average time to rise from lieutenant commander to commander was, Defence said four years’ seniority as lieutenant commander was normally required for substantive promotion to commander.

Most lieutenant commanders NEVER get promoted to commander. It is the same as the promotion from major to lieutenant-colonel – known as “getting your brass hat” as the uniform cap has gold braid on it. Most officers never get promoted beyond major equivalent.

Listen SOG. I worked for 4 years (on contract) with 2 other sane people in an organization with almost exclusively mensa people, some with ridiculously high IQ scores.
What did they do ? Not much.
What were they capable of? Not much.
Dumb as dogshit. Which is why they employed 3 contractors to do the relatively straightforward work that the 30 high IQ people in the department could not understand.

A new report from telecommunications research firm Analysys Mason judges the United States to be in third place for the race to establish a nationwide 5G wireless network, lagging behind China and South Korea but just ahead of Japan.

Analysys Mason sees a tight race, with each of the leading competitors bringing different advantages to the table. China is ahead by a nose thanks to “proactive government policies and industry momentum,” while the United States has the leading private wireless industry in the world, and is close to commercial deployment of 5G networking.

Meredith Attwell Baker, president and CEO of U.S. wireless industry group CTIA, expressed confidence that America would “leapfrog China because key leaders in the Administration, on Capitol Hill, and at the FCC are focused on the reforms needed to win the race.”

However, Baker warned that the U.S. “will not get a second chance to win the global 5G race.”

and

“Pessimism about 5G has been growing behind the scenes in the mobile industry but Huawei is the first large infrastructure company to state it explicitly,” telecom analyst Ben Stanton told the Financial Times. “The reality is that 5G will be incredibly expensive for operators to deploy, requiring tens of thousands of new base stations per country. And the industry is yet to uncover a killer-use case for the 5G network.”

I admit to being out of my depth about the technical and economic aspects of 5G.

Day 6 as Director …
That morning I arrived at the Bureau casually carrying a can of Dr Pepper’s. Of course, everyone knew that Mueller’s tipple of choice was Coca-Cola and he insisted his leadership team also drink Coke. I was determined to show that I would be different so I had decided the previous night that I would purchase a can of Pepsi. But, that momentous morning, as I drew myself up to my full height of 6’8″ before the refrigerators in my local gourmet deli I had yet another of my brilliant strokes of genius … “Dr Pepper! That’s it! Substituting Pepsi for Coke is really just a variation on a theme … Dr Pepper doesn’t just say ‘different’, it says ‘radically different’.
I gave myself only a brief moment to wonder at this inspired moment of lateral brilliance before I returned to my mission of saving the country from creeping conservatism.
When I arrived I said nothing about my Dr Peppers, but people noticed. They knew that nothing would be the same from then on.

9. Theories of Intelligence and the Binet Scales.
10. The Wechsler Intelligence Scales: WAIS-IV, WISC-IV, and WPPSI-III.
11. Testing in Education: Tests of Ability in Education and Special Education.
12. Standardized Tests in Education, Civil Service, and the Military.

The Wechsler tests were developed after the Standford-Binet and are now probably more widely used.

Roger: I’ll believe Micallef is “an equal opportunity” comic when he trades his cardinal costume for a bushy beard and tea-cosy cap and does a skit about a “respected” Islamic community leader and valued member of various taxpayer-funded multi-culti ginger groups marrying a 34-year-old Muslim refugee to a 14-year-old.

The comic potential is immense. Yet the big putz, for reasons unknown, hasn’t got around to tapping the ready mirth in Islam. Why could that be, do you reckon?

How much collusion was necessary to coordinate destroying 30,000 emails, smashing hard drives, and finding the proper Washington counsel to ensure that the now-quite-incestuous FBI never charged the perpetrators with a federal crime?

or

Why, after the election, did Samantha Power request surveillance of Trump campaign aides, and why was she allowed to have their names unmasked, and how did those names get leaked to the press?

Renewable energy capacity set to exceed target Federal Government said was impossible

The GEM study — funded by activist group GetUp — found estimated eligible generation would hit 41,381 GWh by 2020, not only exceeding the current RET, but the original RET as well.

“The Coalition’s argument that we can’t go any further than the target they’ve proposed without imposing some kind of huge economic shock and threat to reliability is obviously not true because we’re pretty much already there,” Green Energy Markets director Tristan Edis said.

Yes, that’s exactly correct. We’re pretty much already there.

Dr Faustus

Isn’t that great!

We can compulsorily make AGL shut down all their coal/gas fired plants and stop paying any subsidy.

Correct.
The toxic leprechaun is but one serious incident away from a massive backlash for taking his eye off the ball.

Customers stranded in SIN or elsewhere when a plane goes tech, tweeting for an adequate response along with some information from the company should go ballistic when they find out that instead of addressing paying customer needs, the PR department is lecturing a sports code.

Listen SOG. I worked for 4 years (on contract) with 2 other sane people in an organization with almost exclusively mensa people, some with ridiculously high IQ scores.
What did they do ? Not much.
What were they capable of? Not much.

Sigh! I said IQ correlates well with performance in traditional school, which it does. This is well established in the literature, so your anecdotes are meaningless. IQ correlates with performance in school at about r = 0.7, which extraordinary for psychology, where most significant correlations are about r = 0.3.

I can code in several programming languages but I call a plumber or an electrician if I have a plumbing or electrical fault. Any attempt by me to fix a leak or a fault would probably result in a flood or a fire; possibly both.

IQ, for instance, will not tell you anything much about sporting ability: the tests are not designed to do that. People with high IQ can have psychological issues. In fact, people with very, very high IQs frequently have major psychological issues.

And Mensa is an organisation that many, if not most, high IQ people have no interest in. You have to score at least 98% on a standardised test but does that mean the person is interesting? Pleasant to be with? Nice? Not in my experience. Some of the smartest people I have met have been complete d*ckheads.

And note that I said that IQ was originally developed for testing for developmental problems and that is still one of its main uses.

IQ tests mostly involve solving problems and looking for patterns. These things are useful in the STEM disciplines which…mostly involve solving problems and looking for patterns. Unless the high IQ person has experience in particular practical situations and problems, they may be useless.

Of course, I did also note that the military have a long history (especially in the US) of using tests to determine suitability for officer training. This was especially the case in WW1 and WW2, where they had to determine the suitability of large numbers of candidates for different assignments.

I got an email from Bogan Star the other day asking me one question, what I thought of them.
Even though they are a subsidiary of QF, I replied that I liked flying them domestically. You knew what you’d be in for and thus there was less room for disappointment. I’m looking at you VA.

Shy Ted
#2689369, posted on April 18, 2018 at 9:04 am
Line from Graham Richardson’ article – The average punter has always suspected that there is one law for the rich and powerful and one for the rest of us.
Imagine that, Graham’s one of us.

Analysing their data by rank offers some insight. Low-ranking soldiers accounted for three-fifths of all deaths, and their IQs measured by their childhood tests averaged 95.3. Officers and non-commissioned officers made up for about 7% and 20% of war deaths respectively. Officers scored 121.9, bringing up the average IQ for those who died. Non-commissioned officers scored an average of 106.7.

I forgot to mention that the 3 of us were probably each pulling in about 5 times their best salary.

I could earn more than I do but I would have to do stuff that would bore me senseless in a week*. Salary is not a completely reliable measure of IQ.

* I do not know my IQ and do not really care. I am too old for such things to be an issue.

I applaud Judith Sloan’s article on immigration this morning.
Especially to bring up the bleeding obvious.
If immigration is “instant wealth” just by bringing welfare bludgers in, let’s help the third world and give our immigrants to countries worse off such as Venezuela, or keep them in their own countries.

No sane mind can honestly claim that bringing people into a socialist shithole is going to fix a socialist shithole.

But I am absolutely frustrated by the almost universal fear of anyone in the mainstream media to utter the name UNITED NATIONS.
To never, ever, conflate immigration and our power problems with the real cause, and a cause they openly admit to being.
Again and again, even here at the cat, people would prefer not to see it, claiming our pollies are just stupid, or captured by a pitifully small handful of loony greens voters.
I AM NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORIST.
Neither is John Constantine or many others here.
The UN has a socialist agenda for world domination WHICH THEY ADMIT TO.
You can read it for yourself in their own words in Agenda 2030 and see it in everything they do.

Yet try to get our MSM right wing-ish editorialists and article writers won’t go there.
Do they prefer to hide this fact to gain more work writing about the various issues caused by the U.N. agenda, while never commenting about the real problem?
Are they scared?
My comment this morning will run dead, as generally speaking, what is as plain as the nose on your face, and as visible to others, the elephant in the room , is ignored.
We will never be using coal again while doing the UN’s bidding.
We will never have western people emigrate to Australia, or even be allowed in when being killed for their skin colour, while doing the U.N’s bidding.
We will get, by U.N. decree, the most anti western people imported on mass they can find.
These of course, happen to be mussies.
Our children are being brainwashed with Marxist values and sexually perverted and attacked, AS THE UN ADMITS TO DOING and it being part of the agenda 2030.
The UN don’t believe in Global warming whether it is happening in reality or not, as their policies let socialist and corrupt countries explode in the building and using of coal power by over a thousand plants world wide, yet our politicians wring their hands and fret over the end of the world if we build one.
Seriously.
They are attacking through our local councils.
Open borders are only for the west.
The U.N. is run by and headed by global socialists with a stated and easily read agenda.

Yet never a mention of it in the MSM or the right wing pollies, even the likes of Bernardi.
The only people letting you know that the U.N. are attacking the west, IS THE U.N. ITSELF.
Our UN bitch, Malcom, panicked when Trump got elected, and you may note the first thing he came out and said after the election is that this does not mean in anyway that we are not going to walk away from our “International obligations ” regarding the Paris Treaty.
Until we realise who our enemies are and that they are in full attack, we will continue to call their warriors stupid, and talk about their armies of mussies, and how bad they are, not realising that no mussie is a problem to Australia if they are sitting in the sandy shithole from whence they came, only from decree that they be here from the U.N.

Yet never a mention of it in the MSM or the right wing pollies, even the likes of Bernardi.

Australian Conservatives policy on the U.N.:

“Australian Conservatives will review Australia’s involvement and funding of the United Nations. In recent decades, the UN has promoted a selective and highly politicised agenda which appears to be increasingly hostile to Western interests.

We will examine all our existing UN treaties and obligations to determine whether they are working in our national interest. Further, we will focus on bilateral and multilateral solutions to foreign issues, which continue to deliver far better and lasting results in contrast to the United Nations.”

“Immigration must provide a positive benefit to Australia’s economic, social and cultural interests. Current immigration levels are too high, putting pressure on services, infrastructure and family incomes. We will immediately halve our current net immigration intake which will result in our population and big cities growing at a more reasonable and manageable rate.”

“We will withdraw from the UN Refugee Convention to allow Australia to determine its refugee intake free from external constraints.”

It’s been pointed out in a few books that more officers die than troops in battle.

Not necessarily meaning they are more stupid but there is a propensity to lead from the front.

One study quoted 11% of troops dying and 21% of officers. Said that “blood was the price of epaulettes.”

Mind you, it CAN mean stupidity. I think it is is Studs Terkel’s The Good War where he cites an instance where a new Marine lieutenant insisted on leading a charge forward into suicidal Japanese fire. His sergeant – Terkel – said not to and the Jap position would be outflanked soon enough, and the enemy would withdraw. Marine lieutenant said too bad, and follow me, and stood up. He was cut down immediately by machine-gun fire.

Yes Roger, I know, I receive the emails ans I am a member of the Australian Conservatives.

That’s about as close to anti U.N. sentiment you can get yet not good enough and easily walked away from, as far as I am concerned.
Whoever declares that leaving the U.N. is their policy gets my vote.
So far that’s as close as it gets in Australia, and frankly Mr Bernardi, it’s not good enough.
“we will look”….what, they can’t now?
Weasel words.

You’ll also note the timing is critical to the global socialists.
When Merkel went too fast and gave the rest of the world something to look at, they slowed her down.
They’ll slow Sweden and France down and countries moving too fast that will give the game away.

Our UN bitch, Malcom, panicked when Trump got elected, and you may note the first thing he came out and said after the election is that this does not mean in anyway that we are not going to walk away from our “International obligations ” regarding the Paris Treaty.

..
Come now Struth.
You are hysterical. Snap out of it.
In a few years time we won’t need jobs, a nation or electricity.
Because robots.
And 3D printing.
And, and EM drive.

Up to 100 per cent of the population growth in some Australian suburbs has come from migration, as falling birth rates and an ageing population rapidly change the makeup of key Liberal seats in Sydney and Melbourne.
The new figures, in a Treasury and the Department of Home Affairs research paper examining the economic benefits of immigration, show the electorates of Turnbull government ministers including Josh Frydenberg and Kelly O’Dwyer are entirely reliant on migrants for their growth.

OCO and Arky had a discussion on the future of work last night. I suspect that both made some accurate points.

OCO contended that much routine work will be done by robots in the future, leaving most of the workforce with unlimited leisure time (quick summary). For some time this was the Utopian vision that left fascists had for the future. The left fascists (living in their own dreamworld) visualised the population engaged in high culture, broadly defined as the pastimes they enjoyed.

Arky commented that much of the population regards tattoos and reality TV as “high” culture (another quick summary). He was pessimistic that Nirvana would soon be upon us with such a proportion of bogans.

We could probably manage with a world of unlimited leisure, funded by robotic factories, letting each group enjoy its version of culture. Unfortunately, the left fascists will not allow this. They hate the bogan culture. Not only that, they have an unsatiatiable hunger for power, hence the mass importation of illiterate, unemployable, unassimilable voteherds.

Once the left fascists obtain absolute power by using imported voteherds, they will do what left fascists always do. They will look on what they have done, and realise that bogans and voteherds are sullying their Utopia. They will then look for a Final Solution.

Then you sigh and fire up the diesel generator to get electricity in the shadow of their windmills.

Only if you can source some diesel – I think Jim Molan is attempting to get some attention to the fact that we only have 3 weeks worth onshore stored at any one time. When the sea lanes are compromised, we’re stuffed.

Just popped over the the Banking RC live feed. Doesn’t have the same frisson as the TURC . The crooks and liars are not as clear cut. A ‘Sparkles’ of Collins Street would liven things up, or a Mizzz O’Brien of Office Temps. sobbing her heart out in remorse.

Listen SOG. I worked for 4 years (on contract) with 2 other sane people in an organization with almost exclusively mensa people, some with ridiculously high IQ scores.
What did they do ? Not much.
What were they capable of? Not much.
Dumb as dogshit. Which is why they employed 3 contractors to do the relatively straightforward work that the 30 high IQ people in the department could not understand.

Oh, yeah. I was forced to work with quite a few PhDs in the APS, and all bar a couple of them were worse than useless. The notion of action was utterly foreign to them, hardly surprising since they had been cosseted schoolkids for most of their lives.

The best one was a chemist, a practical and down to earth chap who got his doctorate back when that meant something, and worked in industry before joining the APS. He was a brilliant manager of a large and complex and politically sensitive program. The other good one was a biochemist, lazy as all get out but a superb strategic thinker who rose almost to the top.

The couple of dozen others were complete wastes of space whose lack of practical skills made you wonder how they dressed themselves and got to work every day.

Arky commented that much of the population regards tattoos and reality TV as “high” culture (another quick summary). He was pessimistic that Nirvana would soon be upon us with such a proportion of bogans

..
No.
I’m fond of bogans.
I am one.
I posit the “robots, 3D printers, EM- drive” stuff is just an excuse to continue de-industrialising troublesome western democracies.
Which it is.

RACE Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane’s term expires in August and the Turnbull government cannot afford to miss this opportunity to stake out its ground in the culture wars. (PIGS MAY FLY)

Conservatives are sick of Coalition governments which appease the Left, curl into a ball and try not to cause outrage while Labor-Green governments remake the culture in their own image.

The country always takes two steps to the Left with a Labor government, and not much better than one step to the Right or even staying in place with the Coalition, which puts us on a very bad trajectory indeed.

The result is that the cultural Left has encroached on every aspect of our lives, from the relentless push to change Australia Day to the gender-neutral birth certificates proposed by the Queensland government. From corporations paralysed by “diversity and inclusion”, to Christians hounded out of the public square. From the promotion of Islam in school religion classes to the feminist-themed, virtue-signalling Commonwealth Games closing ceremony which emptied the stadium in record time.

The Left’s “long march” through the institutions that Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci once dreamt of has been a raging success.

Every time a Labor-Greens government is voted in, it wastes no time appointing fellow travellers and cleaning out anyone associated with the old regime. The bureaucracies become further embedded with leftists committed to cultural change.

But when Coalition governments arrive they don’t do much more than benignly preside over the status quo, even when run by avowed conservatives. John Howard pushed back on the black armband view of history but even after 11 years in office, he only managed to slow the leftward drift. Even then, at the end, he embraced climate voodoo.

Tony Abbott barely had time to make a difference, though stopping the boats and killing of the carbon tax were a promising start. Even then, his government introduced Safe Schools and appointed Natasha Stott Despoja to a pointless new position of Ambassador for Women and Girls.

Every Liberal state education minister knows, for instance, that it’s not worth challenging the leftist orthodoxy in the department or in the teacher unions because their careers won’t survive. The last minister who tried, Terry Metherell in the Greiner government, found that out the hard way. NSW banned Safe Schools but the education establishment still found ways of slipping gender ideology into schools.

The bureaucracies just operate a little more covertly under a Coalition government.

So government gets bigger and more intrusive, the ABC continues unimpeded, destructive quangos such as the Human Rights Commission proliferate and the cancer of identity politics takes hold. Little by little, our remarkable nation is transformed, and the seeds of division take root. The self-reliance and entrepreneurial spirit of Australians is sapped and the bonds of mateship are eroded.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

The only way to arrest this dispiriting drift to the left is for Coalition governments to stop pretending there are no culture wars and get into the trenches and fight.

With a one-seat majority, a prime minister with fashionably progressive views and an election in the next year, we can’t expect bold actions by the Turnbull government that was beyond the Howard and Abbott governments. Like, closing down the HRC.

But Malcolm Turnbull cannot afford to keep making mistakes like he did at the ABC when he appointed as chairman a man who is such a leftie he said he couldn’t see any bias.

The symbolic value cannot be over-estimated of replacing Soutphommasane with a Commissioner who doesn’t want to use race to divide u

That’s all this pesky 36-year-old French-born son of Laotian refugees has done since he was appointed to a five-year term by Kevin Rudd in 2013, a month before the Abbott government was elected. Despite the fact Australia gave Soutphommasane’s family a home, a free education at Hursltone Agricultural High, the University of Sydney, and a Commonwealth scholarship to Oxford University, he preaches that this is a racist country.

Despite the fact this is the most successful immigrant country in the world, which has mostly harmoniously absorbed as many as 200,000 new people each year from around the world, Soutphommasane tells us that culture is toxic.

The former freelance journalist has bought the identity politics agenda, hook line and sinker. He saw the great honours bestowed on him such as membership of the board of the National Australia Day Council and the $340,000 gig at the Australian Human Rights Commission as proof, not that this was a country which offered equality of opportunity to all comers, regardless of the colour of their skin. No, he saw it as more evidence of anti-white racism which needed to be set straight with social engineering.

He will never be forgiven for soliciting racial complaints against a cartoon by the late and much missed Bill Leak, whose persecution under Section 18C of the racial discrimination act only really ended with his untimely death last year of a heart attack at 61.

Soutphommasane’s latest obsession is to impose ethnic diversity quotas on corporate Australia. He declared last year that there were too many white people running Australian companies.

In his five years he has just libelled Australia, creates race-based social divisions and helped fuel a backlash against immigration.

So it’s not good enough for the government to appoint, as is mooted, an innocuous replacement who just avoids the headlines. Restitution is needed. If we must have a Racial Commissioner then let it be a clear-eyed patriot who loves this country.

Warren Mundine is the best person for the job. Well respected, brimming with common sense and optimism, he has proven track record as a businessman, and as an Aboriginal and political leader. He would unite us around what’s best about Australia.

We could probably manage with a world of unlimited leisure, funded by robotic factories, letting each group enjoy its version of culture.

A looong time ago, I predicted that electronics/robotics would make things so quick and cheap that we would all end up with more leisure time while we (as a society) were generating more wealth for less input.
Yeah. I was young and stupid and wrong.

A looong time ago, I predicted that electronics/robotics would make things so quick and cheap that we would all end up with more leisure time while we (as a society) were generating more wealth for less input.

..
That would have involved hard work.
Who could have predicted our leaders would prefer to offshore the whole lot out from under us?
No flying car for you.

Correction. Just went back to the Banking RC and the Commissioner himself just fired three or four rather wry bullets at the AMP bloke and each one hit the target. There seems to be a difference between ‘customer assets’ and AMP assets. News to me.

But Malcolm Turnbull cannot afford to keep making mistakes like he did at the ABC when he appointed as chairman a man who is such a leftie he said he couldn’t see any bias.

That was deliberate not a mistake. Anyone who thinks Lord Waffle is making a mistake when he tacks to the left is the one making the mistake.

Devine’s choice for “Race commissioner”:

If we must have a Racial Commissioner then let it be a clear-eyed patriot who loves this country.

Warren Mundine is the best person for the job. Well respected, brimming with common sense and optimism, he has proven track record as a businessman, and as an Aboriginal and political leader. He would unite us around what’s best about Australia.

Why does “an Aboriginal” matter? That is racist.

And Mundine would “unite us” by changing Australia Day.

Mr Mundine said the fact he was getting attacked, even though he supported the move, showed how “bizarre” the debate had become.

Ms Johnason said that through the Babbarra Women’s Governance Group the artists have lobbied for better health services in Maningrida, for environmental protection of their country against fracking, and for supporting people to return to live on their homelands.

Who pays to support the health services and return to country when the Women’s Governance Group wants to ban productive industries?

The Tax office sees us all as ‘liars and cheats’
It has taken a recently retired and highly respected Federal Court judge to reveal just why the Australian Taxation Office is engaged in an apparently mindless campaign against small business and investors.

Richard Edmonds SC was a top NSW tax barrister who acted both for the ATO and for tax defendants before being appointed a Federal Court judge in 2005. Barristers I have contacted say his tax opinions were among the best in the country.

No one knows what happens inside the Australian Taxation Office better than Richard Edmonds. Now he has broken silence:

“It is not (the ATO) leadership that is the problem, but the existence of a mentality, maintained by too many ATO officers for too long, that taxpayers on the whole are cheats and liars and anything the ATO does to bring them to account can be justified on grounds that it is reasonable and proportionate in terms of the purpose for which the relevant power was granted”.

I will detail more fascinating material from Richard Edmonds later but the above words explain clearly why ATO officials are removing business numbers so the “cheats and liars” can’t earn a living; why it’s machine gunning innovative successful businesses in Australia (they are all “cheats and liars”); bankrupting and exiling overseas our top engineering talent who must also be a “cheat and a liar” and destroying most the gold refining industry.

In my view (not Richard Edmonds) the “cheats and liars” are too many people down the line in the ATO. The incredible revelations by The Australian over the last two years; Self -Employed Australia; The Age; The Sydney Morning Herald and the ABC seemed beyond explanation until Richard Edmonds revealed that it was a long-held ATO attitude that was the problem.

Meanwhile, in my view, the inquiry announced by the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services Kelly O’Dwyer is a total joke and an insult to the intelligence of Australians.

It’s the ATO’s best mate in Canberra, none other than Treasury, who will conduct the inquiry. Treasury has been run down and no longer has the skills or inclination to properly undertake that task against its mates.

Accordingly, Treasury will deny the existence of the ATO’s “cheats and liars” culture and pretend there is no crisis.

Kelly’s inquiry announcement adds: “The Australian Taxation Office, the Inspector-General of Taxation and the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman “will all contribute”.

The ATO is in the dock and can’t be a “contributor”; the Inspector-General of Taxation finds himself conflicted because he may get widened powers to help solve the mess. Only Kate Carnell, the Ombudsman, has any standing in that inquiry but as a “contributor” she does not have the power to interview the ATO people who decided last year to withdraw business numbers; or who garnisheed small business incomes to destroy their business and all the others who undertook such dastardly and long-term revenue reduction acts.

The ATO crisis is far deeper and worse than I thought when I started commenting on the subject two years ago. It’s too hard to completely change the culture using the Inspector-General of Tax and there is grave risk the ATO/Treasury combination will try to create a role for the Inspector-General that merely covers up bad ATO practices.

As I pointed out last week, prosecution and sentencing must be separated from investigation as occurs in the police and other government areas. And a low cost small business tribunal must be established.

Currently the ATO in small business and investor matters is not accountable to anyone. Once ATO prosecutors are forced to justify their allegations to a separate department or a tribunal before undertaking them, the culture will quickly evaporate. We fought wars to have that right and it goes to the heart of democracy.

If the minister does not end the farcical inquiry quickly and separate the powers she will be forced into a Royal Commission into the ATO.

And now back to Richard Edmonds:

“There is undoubtedly some truth in the ATO’s claim that the Fairfax/Four Corners report was “unbalanced commentary”, but the same can be said of the ATO’s statement in response.

“Having been involved in tax controversy, disputation and litigation for 50 years in various capacities, I have never known, contrary to the ATO’s statement, the ATO to apologise to a taxpayer where a court finds that the ATO has wrongly assessed or made a mistake in the collection process.

“Indeed, in a number of situations, the ATO has even taken the position, pending appeal, that it is not bound by decisions of single judges adverse to the commissioner and continued to administer legislation as if the single-judge decision did not exist.

“In more recent years, considerable improvement in ATO process has occurred under the leadership of Commissioner Chris Jordan, and his immediate predecessor, Michael D’Ascenzo.”

Richard Edmonds points out that the “liar and cheats” belief by too many officers below the top leadership goes back a long way and came to the surface at a conference of the NSW Division of the Taxation Institute of Australia in 1970.

“The then Deputy Commissioner of Taxation for NSW, the late Mr Ron Gray, an invited guest speaker, became involved in a heated exchange with two or three delegates and said: “Well in any event, taxpayers on the whole are cheats and liars”.

In response to which, one of the delegates asked: “Are you a taxpayer Mr Gray?” He did not respond, but promptly packed his bag and left the conference.

“A small minority of taxpayers are undoubtedly cheats and liars and they get what they deserve — penalties and, in serious cases, time in custody.

“Unfortunately, many of the cheats and liars slip through the net; equally, the net picks up many taxpayers who are not cheats and liars but have received poor advice or have no business acumen.”

Richard Edmonds goes on to say that while we have moved forward from the Ron Gray days, “that mentality will continue to cause relationship problems between the ATO and its so-called clients (taxpayers) in the administration of the Tax Acts. It is not something that improved process alone can deal with.”

He points out that currently, “Scrutiny of the exercise of ATO powers by independent third parties can only operate on a retrospective basis — after the power has been exercised.

“The powers are so great in their nature and scope that such review will often be too late; by that stage the damage will have been done. This is not to say that improved process should not continue to be pursued; just that it is not the total answer.”

To conclude with my comment, I believe you can’t fix the system by small changes in the process. The only way to do it is to make the sort of fundamental changes I am describing.

Footnote: Richard Edmonds broke his silence in a letter to The Australian Financial Review and in an email exchange with myself.

Who could have predicted our leaders would prefer to offshore the whole lot out from under us?
Trying too hard go get ahead of the curve. Cheap energy is required for all outcomes other than caveman subsistence. Renewables arent going to cut it in the long run, they struggle to power a household economically. Scrap the subsidies to address the delusion.

I agree the Australian Human Rights Commission should only exist with one Commissioner and that is the President of the Commission with a couple of secretaries and no special interest commissioners and there are seven of those and five of them have the word DISCRIMINATION in their title and there is also a racially based commissioner The Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. Spare mi days

Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons are faffing around delaying their entry to Douma despite independent journalists being able to visit without incident. Unfortunately for Western governments the journalists have been unable to find any doctor who can confirm a gas attack, even at the hospital where the White Helmets filmed the alleged aftermath of the ‘attack’.

Never mind, the delay by OPCW inspectors enables this out.

France said it was very likely that evidence of the poison gas attack was disappearing before the inspectors could reach the town.

Cheap energy is required for all outcomes other than caveman subsistence. Renewables arent going to cut it in the long run, they struggle to power a household economically. Scrap the subsidies to address the delusion.

I see Gorsuch sided with the liberals in a 5-4 SCOTUS decision striking down part of an anti-immigrant law. Trump is furious!

Apparently the law signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 has become “Unconstitutionally Vague” now that finally someone has come around to bother to enforce this law. Gorsuch was correct (this isn’t a dumbarse tribal game, it’s about making laws that are workable) but having this dodgy law on the books for more than 60 years just shows how dysfunctional the US government really is.

That “Trump is furious!” snark is of course utter bullshit, but we are used to that.

Hurry! Hurry! Offer Never To be Repeated. Get One For The Price of Two.

NATIONAL BREAKING NEWS
Gillard and Clinton team up in Australia
Julia Gillard and Hillary Clinton will share a stage when the former US presidential candidate visits Australia for brief speaking tour in May.

A looong time ago, I predicted that electronics/robotics would make things so quick and cheap that we would all end up with more leisure time while we (as a society) were generating more wealth for less input.

It’s more a Global thing IME.
Sandvik Global Mining has a Gloabl Mine Automation division located in Oz and Hard Rock mines (e.g. Northparkes and another in WA, at the minimum) are automated – essentially RC drones at the moment.
Labour is reduced/remoted but not entirely eradicated at the moment.
Helps cut down on the Red Tape army (mainly wymminses, even in Mining) which must be a huge impost on operational costs.

Rugby Australia’s decision not to sanction Israel Folau yesterday has failed to convince a number of its sponsors, with one key corporate partner last night revealing it would pull its support from the code and others reviewing their position. However, other Wallabies partners have recommitted in the wake of the Folau controversy, saying that rugby should be inclusive of all views, including religious freedoms. Several other sponsors have privately aired concerns that the body has lost “control” of Folau.

Folau must be controlled?

The maker of the Wallabies’ official sports drink, SOS Hydration, told The Australian last night that it would withdraw its support from Rugby Australia, despite currently still being listed on the body’s website: “For a number of reasons, there are no plans to move forward with our partnership,” SOS’s Australian managing director Andrew Shaw said. “SOS supports inclusiveness and welfare of all athletes.”

…except those that express conservative Christian views.

Yesterday, other sponsors, while expressing no change to their public stances, privately expressed concerns about Rugby Australia’s latest public comments about Folau: “It sounds like they have absolutely no control of him,” one sponsor said. The same sponsor was particularly critical of what it saw as contradictory messages in yesterday’s Rugby Australia statement, on the one hand noting it would not sanction Folau while also noting it would “remind all employees of their obligation to use social media in a respectful way”. “It’s pretty lame, and it’s a contradiction,” the key sponsor said. “Rugby Australia should just say: ‘Remind all employees — except Israel Folau’.”

The same sponsor made it clear it held concerns Ms Castle had said she would take a strong stance in favour of diversity and inclusion when she became CEO a few months back. “She told us she’d be taking a strong stand,” the sponsor said. “She might think she’s taking a strong stand, but we don’t.” Another sponsor made it clear Rugby Australia was on notice following Folau’s social-media comments. “What happened, happened, and no one expects it to happen again.” A third unnamed sponsor, which is planning to continue supporting Rugby Australia, had sympathy for its dilemma: “They’re in a very difficult position. They don’t have any control over him. Yet I find it curious they call players like Folau an employee.” Another sponsor was blunt: “This is Rugby Australia’s issue to fix. We’ve got a business to run.”

Control again.

One sponsor that will be watched closely is the digital partner of Rugby Australia and the Wallabies, Accenture. Last week, the consulting firm made the most pointed public comments by a sponsor so far about Folau’s original Instagram post. “Ensuring an inclusive environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) employees is an integral part of Accenture’s inclusion and diversity strategy,” a spokeswoman said. “We are committed to an inclusive and diverse workplace where people feel safe to be who they are and be their best personally and professionally, and expect this to be fundamental to all our partners.” Yesterday, Accenture had nothing to add. However, it is understood Accenture’s contract with Rugby Australia comes up in July, and in light of recent events, the company is reviewing the arrangement. Swisse also had nothing to add yesterday but said last week: “Diversity and inclusion are so important in our team and to our culture.”

Stars formed together in clusters share the same chemical composition — which scientists liken to DNA — but a family reunion remains unlikely as the stars usually drift light years apart after their formation.

A “chemical composition” is nothing like DNA. It is a stupid statement.

As DrBG posited, the smartest robots are RC drones, but I don’t see it as an issue as they’re reliant on RF comms for GPS, etc. anyway, so it’s irrelevant where the intelligence resides, even if it is a bunch of rodent brain cells in a petri dish (fact).

John C.
You can come to Oz on a student visa pretty easily.
But under recent changes, post finishing your study you have to have 2 years working, earning taxable income of 88k per annum, before you can use that avenue for family reunion visas.

The path from student visa to refugee visa & then family reunion is a disaster zone so the above path is easier.

The problem we hear from staff is the govt keeps changing the system.
If the weather & food weren’t so good here, we’d be up shit creek.

Robotics and electronics are rapidly becoming a “thing” in the mining industry.

The use of electronic surveying and geological analysis equipment has boomed in the last couple of years.
Sophisticated aerial drones are common as dirt, even in small scale operations. On site electrical grids and water supply are monitored and controlled by computers, often without any human supervision

“Driverless” ore trucks are common in the larger minesites, as are remote controlled jumbos and conveyors.

The big miners have teams of people working on projects to automate as many operations as possible.

There are (relatively) large capital outlay costs, but once instituted and working, automation is a huge cost saver.

Farsight Shorten has correctly realised Australia is far too fucked to support 3D printers, coding, apps and EM Drives and all that sort of bullshit. His innovative response is “Landing Pads”, a government funding initiative to set up Australian entrepreneurs in the USA:

A Shorten Labor Government will boost commercialisation of Australia’s R&D and support Australian entrepreneurs in the United States by setting up a dedicated innovation and commercialisation ‘landing pad’ in San Francisco.

There is no place for anything other than CFMEU infrastructure and NDIS in future Australia.
No flying car for any of us.

The last change on that list is poignant for Pocock given he and partner Emma decided not to legally marry in 2010 until their gay friends were afforded the same right.

That time has come and Pocock and Emma have started a wedding conversation, but it’s just one small piece of a puzzle the 29-year-old will start putting together when he returns to Canberra early next week.
“We’ve chatted about it. At the time in 2010 we had a little ceremony with family and friends, but decided we didn’t want to sign anything our friends couldn’t,” Pocock told Fairfax Media from Japan.

“It’s kind of just been a personal stand and we’ll see what happens, we’ll organise something low key. There’s plenty of time to sort of all of that out….

Pocock was born in Zimbabwe. He grew up on a farm owned by his family, who fled the country during a period of heightened unrest owing to the Zimbabwean government’s land redistribution campaign. His family migrated to Brisbane, Australia in 2002.

I can code in several programming languages but I call a plumber or an electrician if I have a plumbing or electrical fault.

Just how difficult would it be to get an old game (1993) to have a construction module added to it?
For example, the board game is a fairly simple one of directing units from one hex to another, initiating attacks and building defences. The game itself needs to be able to alter the units starting positions, their strengths and movement points etc, alter the terrain and set weather factors.
I’ve tried using a compiler/decompiler but can’t get anywhere due to ignorance of programming.
Any advice is worthwhile.

One of the great Victorians, Ron Blaskett, has died. As everyone and anyone gets a state funeral these days, the man who had his hand up Gerry Gee’s bottom undoubtedly deserves one with all the trimmings.

Just how difficult would it be to get an old game (1993) to have a construction module added to it? For example, the board game is a fairly simple one of directing units from one hex to another, initiating attacks and building defences. The game itself needs to be able to alter the units starting positions, their strengths and movement points etc, alter the terrain and set weather factors. I’ve tried using a compiler/decompiler but can’t get anywhere due to ignorance of programming.
Any advice is worthwhile.

Until we realise who our enemies are and that they are in full attack, we will continue to call their warriors stupid, and talk about their armies of mussies, and how bad they are, not realising that no mussie is a problem to Australia if they are sitting in the sandy shithole from whence they came, only from decree that they be here from the U.N.

Elon Musk has admitted that automation has been holding back Tesla’s Model 3 production and that humans, rather than machines, were the answer.

The electric car maker’s chief executive said that one of the reasons Tesla has struggled to reach promised production volumes was because of the company’s “excessive automation”.

Asked whether robots had slowed down production, rather than speeding it up, during a tour around Tesla’s factory by CBS, Musk replied: “Yes, they did … We had this crazy, complex network of conveyor belts … And it was not working, so we got rid of that whole thing.”

“Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated,” Musk added later.

“Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated,” Musk added later.

The Japanese have spent the last 50 years gradually replacing human jobs with robot automation. They still have jobs for a lot of humans in that process, and it’s been a slow process requiring deep knowledge and a lot of trial and error.

Musk thinks he can create a car company in a few years, obviously he drinks his own bathwater.

“Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated,” Musk added later.

The Japanese have spent the last 50 years gradually replacing human jobs with robot automation. They still have jobs for a lot of humans in that process, and it’s been a slow process requiring deep knowledge and a lot of trial and error.

Musk thinks he can create a car company in a few years, obviously he drinks his own bathwater.

I have no problems with bogans. Had one renting next door once. Once you got over him having fvck tattooed on one shoulder and cnvt on the other, he was fun to talk to and have a beer with, and a good neighbour.

I would rather spend time with him than with over credentialled (but uneducated) SJWankers who are so up themselves that their lips are permanently puckered because they talk through their anuses.

I think it likely that insurmountable difficulties will be found with any possible renewal/extension of Folaus contract and the ARU will decide not to stand in his way should he decide pursue a rugby career in another country. After all, he has previously taken a number of absences on his own whim. So, no big deal really.

Except to those who have now decided that his Mormonism and Pentecostalism are no longer impediments to his rugby playing, and can hardly be held against him when compared to the gayness of the Qantas CEO.

If Joyce wants to be buggered twice a day that’s his problem. I don’t care what he does in his own time and on his own dime. I strongly object to his using his Qantas clout to prpogandise for his own disgusting habits.

Liberal member for Farrer, Sussan Ley, wants to phase out live exports.
Why am I not surprised that this attention deprived blonde is happy to play to the twittersphere. I bet she’s one of Malcolm’s pets as well.
Probably had a word with Lucy and the girls all agree that it’s far too yucky.

Liberty Quote

The Cat is colourful, prolific, often very funny and actually (given the laissez faire mod policy) one of the few places where comment threads regularly offer a diversity of perspectives – though you’d wonder at the possibility of masochistic tendencies in some of the lefty regulars.